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China

Update: Shenzhou 9 Docks With Tiangong-1

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
June 18, 2012
Filed under ,

Chinese Astronauts Dock and Enter Tiangong 1 Mini-Spacelab (with video)
“Following on their successful launch on Saturday the Chinese Shenzhou-9 spacecraft docked today with the Tiangong-1 mini-spacelab and the three taikonauts lef by commander Jing Haipeng,followed by Liu Wang and then later Liu Yang, entered the small spacelab for the first time.”

China Set for Historic Mission, SpaceRef
China will launch the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft tomorrow morning at 6:37 a.m. EDT with a crew of three taikonauts (astronauts) to the Tiangong 1 spacelab which was launched at the end of September last year. The crew includes Jing Haipeng, a veteran of two other spaceflights and who will command the mission, Liu Wang and Liu Yang, the first female Chinese taikonaut. It will also marks the first time a manned crew docks with the Tiangong 1, China’s small spacelab.
Marc’s note: The story includes taikonauts video press briefing with english translation.
Marc’s update: Shenzhou 9 lifted off on time and is now in orbit. Watch the launch replay here.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

43 responses to “Update: Shenzhou 9 Docks With Tiangong-1”

  1. cynical_space says:
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    Say, didn’t the Chinese criticize the term “taikonaut” as an invention of the Western media and said they should just be called astronauts? Seems like I remember something like that…

    Otherwise, good on them! Good to see a HSF program progressing somewhere.

  2. Nassau Goi says:
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    I’m pretty sure there is a significant amount of people with the dismissal sentiment on this, thinking it’s no big deal since we did this decades ago.

    Last time I checked, The US has no manned launched capability.

    • John Gardi says:
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      Nassau:

      Not so on my part. The sci-fi writer Robert A. Heinlein once said (and I paraphrase) “We will colonize space… but it probably won’t be Americans.” If the Chinese see it in their strategic long term interests to ‘take the high ground’ and it’s affordable (or profitable) enough, they will make the effort.

      Spacex’s successful flight to ISS has caught the interests of more than billionaire entrepreneurs and, finally, Congress but sovereigns as well, big and small.

      The fact that the Chinese spacecraft use the APAS (world standard) docking mechanism makes for some interesting scenarios too. Like the Russians inviting the Chinese to their part of the ISS or Spacex getting a cargo delivery contract for the Chinese space station on the pretext that they were simply the lowest bidder.

      I don’t care who builds the damn bridge as long as the job gets done is all. I wanna cross that river. May the most motivated win.

      tinker

      • Paul451 says:
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        “I don’t care who builds the damn bridge as long as the job gets done is all. I wanna cross that river.”

        Although it’s always worth keeping an eye on who will become the toll-keeper.

  3. rickl says:
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    Good luck and my sincere best wishes to them. We’re still at an early stage where any manned launch is a significant event.

  4. newpapyrus says:
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    It was a beautiful launch! China is also working on a heavy lift rocket capable of placing at least 100 tonnes into orbit. And they have already stealthily stated their intent to go to the Moon.

    This is a very serious space program for a country that could soon be the largest economy on Earth during the next decade. I guess they’ve learned the hard lessons about exploring new frontiers from their mistakes 600 years ago.

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nov

    Marcel F. Williams

    • Nassau Goi says:
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      Marcel, you post a lot of controversial things and I thought I had made it through one lacking until I saw “their mistakes 600 years ago.”

      The Chinese had the largest Navy and standing army at the time. I don’t think they made a mistake. They had just overthrown Mongul rule, to conquer lands in the same fashion would be against widely held principles in Buddhist culture. Their mistakes are more accurately described by the allowance if British influence in their lands, to the Opium wars and Boxer rebellion.

      • Anonymous says:
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        That’s debatable. The only agreed-upon fact is that just as Europe was turning outward, China turned inward, for whatever reason. Had they continued their naval explorations, we might be living in a much different world today. It is not hard to find Chinese nationals who damn the Ming dynasty to perdition for what they feel was acute short-sightedness.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          Guest,
          I’ve seen this viewpoint often before, but have never seen anything written by the Chinese themselves to support it. It may well be that they had done enough exploring of the world for that time and had learned that a higher priority for the time was securing their home lands against the intrusions of overbearing foreigners. The Chinese culture of the time was, by all accounts, the most advanced, but that culture needed to be protected from being militarily overrun by the lesser nations. So, it may be that “turning inward” was not what they did, but rather they simply made an informed decision that there was nothing more to be gained, but much to be lost by continuing their explorations. I think it’s a possibility worth considering. Besides, throughout history, “leading” nations have always eventually found that being on top gets to be just too expensive to maintain for ever. The US is learning this lesson now.
          Steve

          • DTARS says:
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            I seem to recall another great culture that just kept expanding when they could.

            Hummm I guess current Italians would call that a mistake.

            We need to have the Biggest piece of pie!!! With the richest flavor! Right????

          • DTARS says:
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            Porky Pie
            Steve,
            You said a while back it is all about people. I don’t know exactly what you meant by that but it lead to me having a funny idea.

            The Porky Pie Unification Theory  lol

            Unifies the relationships between all living creatures and their environment which also explains how their environment molds how creatures act.

            There can be long term effects, like how environment effects creatures evolution. Or short term effects like how creatures act differently depending on the resources within their reach on a day to day basis.

            Think about how much of our lives actions or reactions/nature, ideas are determined by the desire to have our slice of the pie. Lol

            Parents take care of theirs kids to make sure their kids are getting their piece of the pie.

            All wars are fought for the same reason.

            Tribal and racial fights are about  others effecting our slice of the pie.
            You, Steve are one that hopes to get all the people of earth to share their slices so we can go into space to hopefully make the pie bigger for all.   

            The final frontier lol The whole pie lol

            Religious wars, trying to force feed others our favorite flavor of pie. To increase our share.

            Anyway I’ve been struck by how crippling it appears to be when NASA employees are forced to share, fight over a fixed amount of pie.

            Time to vote, lol humm who’s the best pie baker and slicer lol.

            Anyway human nature is an interesting thing.

            If only man had learned and come to terms with my Porky Pie Unification Theory sooner I bet we would have settled the Solar system by now. Lol

            Mr. Simpleton lol 

            Steve, if you find your grand plans, don’t work. It maybe that you need to think more about my  Theory.

          • DTARS says:
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            Add 

            Mr. Whitfield 

            As well as being a good person to write a global space  Infrastructure plan. I think it might be important for you travel on the first mission to Mars too. I couldn’t think of a better person to be in charge of the ice cream scoop and the tazer gun 🙂

            Maybe fear of china being the pie slicer will help us get going but I fear it will just lead to more SLS foolishness. I get sick when I here Bolden say commercial does Leo while we NASA explore. 🙁

      • Anonymous says:
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        They will not make the same mistake again. How we learne, what will be our response, and will we make their mistake. Absolutely a critical time.

      • newpapyrus says:
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        Sometimes you have to spend money to make money!

        Sending the first satellites into orbit was very expensive for the United States and the Soviet Union, but today, satellites are at the core of a multi-hundred billion dollar a year global satellite based telecommunications industry.

        The US would be a lot poorer and a lot less technologically advanced if it weren’t for the government’s investment in space.

        Marcel F. Williams

    • no one of consequence says:
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      Yes, it was perfect. They are serious. Notice it wasn’t a HLV that they launched on, but a clone of Titan II/III. Nor is there any sign of a HLV, just patient slow progress on a EELV like launcher, with a frugal program 1/10th that of CxP.

      What they’re most concerned about is something that out performs them on launch economics, so even with 10x the money they can’t get the same effect. If you don’t think that this isn’t a big deal, you haven’t the slightest understanding of Chinese culture/history. And its means to compete/power. Clever economics for the long term matters most.

      China is not like the US.

      • newpapyrus says:
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        You don’t need an HLV to launch people into LEO, you need an HLV to for deep space missions for setting up permanent outpost on the Moon and Mars and for providing the hundreds of tonnes of mass shielding that’s going to be required for safe interplanetary travel.

        Marcel F. Williams

        • no one of consequence says:
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          … need an HLV to for deep space missions for setting up permanent outpost on the Moon and Mars and for providing the hundreds of tonnes of mass shielding that’s going to be required for safe interplanetary travel.

          Nope. Two kids back in 2007 at the Mars Society proposed reusing a carbonaceous 100-200T asteroid with a dynamically changed orbit(variation on Aldrin cycler – you use weak stability boundary theory with a induced chaotic thrust for a recurrent manifold) – use what you’ve already got on orbit. They used a Jupiter J-130/J-246 at the time, but talked to Elon Musk at the meeting about a variant approach using Falcon Heavy.

          They’ll be at the 2012 meeting, ask them about it.

          • DTARS says:
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            :). Interesting lol

          • DTARS says:
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            Aldrin Space City

            Didn’t I read in another thread that their is a commercial company wanting to get into the asteroid resource business? 

            Maybe we should hire/invest in them. To build this part of the inner solar system railroad.

            So Bus Aldrin’s recycler can be made safe with a view stray rocks???

            Sounds like another one of those mission plans we need to be spending our saved SLS and Orion money on to me.

            Would you want your  recycler to be attached to your shield. Or just fly in it’s shadow?

            So we could build our mars transfer vehicle out of space masonry on the shady side of a rock only needing to carry up a few pool liners from earth to make it a habitable place??? Plus have a hi tech HVAC contractor lol

            So maybe you put your shielding in the middle of your recycler. Don’t you just build around your rock? Using the sunny side for your plants and where you live when the Space weather is good. And you retreat to the shadows during Solar storms.

            So in time Aldrins recycler could become a space city. A city of commerce between two worlds.

            Well how can we get started?

            Mr. C fun to realize that Buzzes recycliar is really doable

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        Clever economics for the long term matters most
         
        Mr. C,
         
        And they are practical, too.  Notice the Gemini-Agena (smash and grab) docking?

        Steve

    • thebigMoose says:
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      Yes, it was a beautiful, stable burn on the booster. Serious business, indeed.

    • mfwright says:
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      That PBS article seems like what USA is doing right now except global military. Those large ships Chinese used to have probably very expensive to maintain and Ming dynasty analyzed it as a business case and figured no need to maintain it (and I think total cost was only 0.5% of the total Chinese federal budget at the time). Without large ships, then probably other things were eliminated. It seems USA doing same thing most notably giving up manufacturing/industrial because per business it’s cheaper to have Chinese do it. Of course we still have global military but more and more of the components and infrastructure are designed and built offshore. Some say it don’t matter who builds the bridge but think of who will be the toll collector.

  5. Barry W Finger says:
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    It was a great launch and man was the ride to orbit apparently smooth. Awesome video quality.

    You have to feel good for all the folks that are working this mission. Anyone who has ever worked closely on a vehicle program and seen it leave the ground knows the joy and pride they are feeling!

  6. no one of consequence says:
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    Had we not been so narrow minded about COTS-D, we might have had people going up in that Dragon.

  7. Anonymous says:
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    Certainly a watershed moment for the US. How will we respond to this Clear and Present Challenge ?

  8. Sam Sham says:
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    The Space-X launch garnered more interest in the U.S., but this launch is actually more newsworthy. We have been docking spacecraft (crewed) to a Space Station since 1974 (Apollo+Skylab). Space-X docked an unmanned ship to the ISS, and although it is viewed as a private company, they received >$300 Million in NASA funding to do this. It is sad the Chinese and Russians are sending humans to space stations, whereas we have no capability to do this right now.

  9. Helen Simpson says:
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    We did that once, and we’ll do it again. I have no problem with the Chinese trying to do what we’ve already done, and we’ve done extremely well. It’s when they start doing things that we haven’t done that life gets interesting.

  10. James Lundblad says:
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    They docked this AM.

  11. dbooker says:
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    Kind of funny watching the video. The Chinese astronauts don’t look that comfortable in weightless environment. They are always trying to use hand grasps or even trying to walk using the restraints. Haven’t quite worked out that they can just push off and float around.

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      Makes you wonder how much if any parabolic training they do

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      I found out that the Chinese astronauts do their parabolic training in Russia. Also, having watched many a Space Shuttle crew make their first tentative movements around ISS, I think that the movements of the Chinese astronauts during their first time in Tiangong 1 seemed similar. I’m sure by the end of the week they will be better at it, although based on what I have heard ISS Expedition crewmembers say, it takes several weeks to really get proficient.  I remember one Expedition crewmember saying that for their first few weeks on ISS they were constantly in awe watching the crewmembers who had been there for several months, because they moved around so gracefully and effortlessly.

  12. James Lundblad says:
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    It’s also Sally Ride’s anniversary.
    http://www.nasa.gov/multime

  13. James Stanton says:
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    I am sure you will talk a different language when the Chinese announce they will leave LEO.

  14. Nox Anonymous says:
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    It would very interesting to know what percentage of the complete system(Long march, Shenzhou 9, Tiangong 1, Suits, etc) is of Russian Design or Russian Modified Design. Also what percentage is actually pure Russian bought parts. Not that there is anything wrong with doing this! Why completely reinvent the wheel when there are designs that work.

    • John Gardi says:
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      Nox:

      Take note. China did not choose to launch an astronaut with the Russians when given the opportunity. A simple matter of collective pride. Maybe they take that same pride in their hardware.

      The present family of Long March launchers use hydrazine as fuel and is spontaneously ignited when mixed with it’s oxidizer. The Apollo lunar lander used this type of fuel as well as almost every reaction control thruster found on satellites and spacecraft. Simple, reliable… and messy.

      The new Long March 4 and onward will be kerosine/liquid oxygen powered. More complicated, more efficient… and more dangerous (during the launch phase). The Chinese are calling then ‘environmentally clean’ and, relative to their present launchers, they are.

      A close look at the first stage engines of the Long March 4 (when we see them) will tell us if they are Chinese knockoffs of Russian gear, as they’ve been doing with military hardware for decades.

      tinker

      • Nox Anonymous says:
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        justatinker:Thanks for that point. I was wondering why the launch had the color of hydrazine. I wouldn’t say messy, It works like a dream, but horrible implications for Humans and other organisms near by make it nearly lethal.Other then the Long March there is a lot of copying (and I’m fine  with that) – but it would be interesting to know the full extent.For example – their launch suits looked like almost exact copies of the Sokul flight suits.-Nox

  15. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    Did I mention the APAS docking hardware the Chinese are using? A little research shows that the only active APAS docking ports on the ISS are at the ends of the two PMAs (Pressurized Mating Adapters)… on the ‘American’ side of the station.

    So, if the Chinese are gonna come for tea (the only neighborly thing to do), regardless of who invites them… guess who’s door they’ll have to come knocking at?

    tinker

  16. DTARS says:
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    Thinking about china being the future toll keeper to outer space.
    Well I wish they would act more like us. I thought we made a wise move excluding them from ISS. I know y’all can’t disclose all those classified secrets we stopped them from getting by keeping them off ISS and shuttle. I’m sure glad we taught them how to share with others to start building our inner solar system railroad.

    Add just making sure y’all knew I’m being sarcastic here

  17. Bernardo de la Paz says:
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    Congratulations to the Chinese – excellent job, and particularly impressive given the relatively quick schedule and apparently economical budget to get to this point compared to ISS.
    Just goes to show how much a motivated single entity can accomplish when unencumbered by byzantine international collaboration schemes. Hopefully the Chinese stay smart and the rest of us relearn the lessons of the early space age – we’ll all get a lot farther a lot faster if the recent era of international collaboration is superseded with some good, healthy international competition again.

  18. nasa817 says:
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    The US has been steadily sacrificing its future in industry and manufacturing (and thus space exploration) for short-term profit.  This is the inevitable outcome of capitalism without ethics or morals.  We are steadily becoming more short-sighted, focusing strictly on next quarter’s profits without consideration for long-term planning.  There is currently no profit to be made in space, merely money to be made off of government contracts.  Hopefully, “new space” can change the cost of access to space through more private investment and increased launch rate.  Our country is in decline because it is driven by greed and profit at the expense of everything else.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with capitalism and profit.  But like all things in life, it must be taken in moderation or it will consume you.

  19. Matt says:
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     Come on SpaceX!!!  Obama and Lori Carver…I mean Garver is dismantling US Space Flight to make room for you, hope you beat the Chinese…NASA isn’t going to do it anymore…actually ‘can’t’ do it anymore is more correct.